Sunday, 22 April 2018
From the Runs Secretary, Rupert Goodings:Short answer – yes!
Some of you have questioned the merits of dividing into two groups at different speeds. You argue that we should all ride together at the speed of the slowest. Hopefully this section will explain why.
We want to split by speed because the survey showed that we have a broad (3-way) split at the village start between people who would like to ride faster, same speed or slower. Likewise, the city start is split between people who like to ride faster and some same speed riders. In both cases, the slower riders are the people who are most disadvantaged by the current arrangement. This slower group includes some people who have stopped riding because they have found the rides too fast – and we hope these changes will enable them to re-join our rides.
Yes, we should "ride at the speed of the slowest" but in practice this often does not happen in a comfortable way. We don't actually ride at the same speed. More typically, the 1-2mph differences in riding speeds means that the group gets stretched out. Then - after a few miles - the leading riders have to stop and wait for the slower riders to catch up. The slower riders are often left hanging off the back where they feel rushed and decoupled from the group. And the faster riders get cold and a bit frustrated when they have to stop and wait too often.
Two groups riding at slightly different speeds should work better for all the people who prefer "faster" or "slower" – they just choose the group that reflects their preferred speed. If you voted for "same" speed you should be happy with either ride. The speed of the "faster" ride should be similar to the faster of our current rides – i.e. 12.5-13.5mph average. Likewise the speed of the "slower" ride should be similar to the slower of our current rides – i.e. 11.5-12.5mph average.
So not a big difference, but as Mr Macawber might have said:
"Average ride speed 12.5mph, personal comfort speed 13mph, result happiness.
Average ride speed 12.5mph, personal comfort speed 12mph, result misery."
Yes, just a small 1mph average speed makes all the difference between comfortable and not.
The survey shows that most of you agree on the idea of dividing by speed. But it is also clear that you only want a modest difference in speed: the faster ride is expected to travel no more than 1-2 mph faster than the slower ride.
There is a mix of speeds at both starts and hence we think it is best to divide into two different speeds after coffee. The faster ride after coffee will be led one of two leaders (city or village). To try and reduce the chaos as we set off from coffee we will label the faster ride on the website, so that both leaders and riders know who is taking the faster ride in advance. The faster lead will normally alternate between city and village starts but can be swopped if both leaders agree.
Both starts should ride at the usual moderate pace from the start to coffee. The city and village riders are then expected to merge and re-divide into two groups to ride from coffee to lunch. This already happens on some rides and we will now try to make this a more formal arrangement.
The faster ride will be labelled with a new category of "moderate plus" on the rides lists and the slower ride will continue to be labelled as "moderate".
The large number of village riders means that most weeks we need to divide into two groups. Yes, this means that we need a second village leader, but the second leader only has to lead as far as coffee, assuming that several riders continue to head home after coffee.
We propose to try and make this split into a more regular arrangement where the official leader always divides the ride into two even sized groups on the day if there are more than 10 riders. The official leader will be asked to nominate someone to lead a second group to coffee. That nominated second leader will usually follow the planned route provided by the leader. Back markers can help to keep the groups well separated but in sight.
The aim is to have two even sized groups and both follow the usual rule of riding at the speed of the slowest. But we can also try dividing into a faster and a slower group with the faster group setting off first (otherwise, the two groups tend to recombine very quickly). By making this a regular split every week, we are hoping the rides will settle down into two comfortable groups.
The village start will remain the same at 9:30. We will continue to have an occasional earlier 9:15 village start when needed.
The city start will be at 09:15. An earlier city start is needed because the city ride usually has a longer route to coffee. The city ride tends to be a faster ride, but we will ask the city leader to set a moderate pace from the start to coffee to keep the ride comfortable for everyone.
Most of you know the history of the Hauxton start at Greta's house, but now seems like a good time to change to a public location. Many of you have suggested that we move to a more central village location.
We considered moving the start to Shelford Recreation Ground but we prefer to move to Hauxton Village Green because the parking is easier and it is less congested in the morning.
A majority favour a different stop at the same distance to reduce the queues, but many of you prefer to keep the same stop. Several people argued that we could continue with the same coffee stop if we stagger the arrival times, and when combined with those who prefer the same stop anyway, we get similar numbers for both options.
We will start by keeping the same coffee stop for both rides to allow the rides to meet and then split into different speeds. But we can try to reduce the queues a bit by having staggered arrival times between the cirt and village rides. And if the two village groups ride at different speeds this should also help to spread out the arrivals.
We will keep this issue under review. We may also try having different stops for the different rides. We will trial different options over the summer and see what works best.